Since the Russians invaded Ukraine in February, 2022, The Spark has been in communication with the ProEnglish Theatre in Kyiv from time-to-time as art continues to thrive with violence and death throughout Ukraine.

On The Spark Monday, we were joined by Alex Borovensky, the artistic director of the ProEnglish Theatre, who spoke to us live from Kyiv. Borovensky spoke about important art is while the war goes on,"I believe that at the moment this is the only thing that keeps us going. And yes, I'm talking about this brings you to experience, because for many Ukrainians, they have different sources of inspiration. But for us, our bubble, our circle, art is the only thing that matters. And that kept us going when we ran out of finances, when we ran out of the initial adrenaline rush, when we ran out of this national burst, we're going to kick Russians out of our country. All of this ends. Art doesn't because art speaks about the future and it works for us. It works for artists, it works for people who watch our performances. It gives this invisible sources of energy that makes us go on no matter what. You cannot resist art. It penetrates you on any level."

The Ukraine Fringe International Festival entitled "Festival for the Brave" begins August 30 at the ProEnglish Theatre. It includes performers from six countries and a variety of performances and genres. Borovensky says the title is significant,"It works on two levels for us even to put International Theater Festival in the heart of people these days is the sign of biggest bravery possible. Yes, we do it in the bomb shelters, but international artists, they do come these days to Kyiv to present the arts to Kyiv. Audiences see two performances in English, and we're going to have about 20 of those. So it works on two levels. We call those international artists that do come to Kyiv. Great, because it's bravery, not insanity. Bravery for sure. Every Ukrainian is great because we're still there. We're still have the guts and power not only to donate and support and fight and resist, but also to come to see it and enjoy the show."

Borovenskiy was asked how performances have changed since the start of the war,"In the beginning of invasion, there were no audiences. All the audience was hiding in the basements, bomb shelters and everything and theaters were officially prohibited as the public gathering place. So we had no theater for, say, like three months or so. Yes, we rehearsed. Yes, we showed it to a small number of local audiences. It was not there. Then when we started theaters in the beginning, we're mostly reflecting on what's going on. War is still there. It's very poignant. So we had a lot of stage readings and they were directly talking about what's going on. It was like this minute to minute diaries that we put on stage and the actors just read it. So the lot of these things and some of them did transform into the theater performances. Some of them didn't. And only now we come in not to what I say, theater normal, but what I call the new theater, because all of our performances, they are affected by war. There is none of this that wouldn't be touched by it, but it doesn't speak about this directly anymore. We come in back to the theater that works through symbols, that works form, that works through structures like theater, as it should be. But it's still very poignant because the war is still there. So right now, the audience, I would say, we don't watch the stupid comedies anymore. We watch smart comedies. If we want to laugh, we don't watch drama, drama anymore. We watch drama that make us better. We smile. We watch something that makes us think and speak. This is one of the biggest things. Pretty much after every discussion, after every performance, we would have a discussion and talk. And this is what we didn't have before. Shows over. Audience Go home now. It's not like this anymore. We talk and sometimes we talk longer than the performance, and this is very important."

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